To the Readers' Forum:
Many high schools have ''The Group,'' that collection of troublemakers who look at each day as a brand new opportunity to harass and spread lies about their classmates.
Thinking they reek of importance is a group specialty. Group members are required to major in fuzzy math. They believe that if you add up five losers, you get a winner.
The group attacks early and often. For any reason, or for no reason at all. The group would never allow the facts to get in the way of a good rumor.
You must have an unbearable thirst for lying if you want to be in the group. If you have a strong sense of honesty and fair play, you'll never be in the group. You, my friend, will need to find something else to do with your life. You are simply not group material.
Once the group decides on a victim, they will branch outside the group. with plans of turning as many classmates as they can against their prey. The strong resist. The weak allow themselves to get sucked in.
Many students have been well prepared on how to handle the kinds of life forms that make up the group. They fully understand that when the group attacks, they are not the ones that have the problem. Others don't handle it quite so well. When the group smells blood, they move in.
Complaining about the group to school officials is almost always a waste of time. Schools love to talk about their ''Zero Tolerance Policy.'' But at the end of the day, those are just hollow words used to fill up the back of the school calendar.
That would be the most logical starting point. It is important to get school officials on record as ignoring your complaint. But if you want results, you will need to take your concerns outside the school. The school will finally react when pushed hard enough.
Each group members will find life unforgiving once they leave the safe walls of their high school. College classmates or a supervisor with a business to run will into find their childish games quite so amusing.
In the words of Thomas Sullivan Magnum III:''Fate has a way of wagging its long, bony finger right in front of your nose.''
Dan Nelson
Bemus Point